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NYS 2009 Historic Preservation Awards Announced

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New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has announced the recipients of the 2009 New York State Historic Preservation Awards. Established in 1980 to honor excellence in the protection and rejuvenation of New York’s historic and cultural resources, this year’s winning projects included several buildings adapted or rehabilitated for affordable housing and one that created affordable work spaces for small manufacturers.

Not-For-Profit Achievement:

The Public Policy Program, Preservation League of New York State for outstanding leadership and commitment to the development and enactment of the New York State Historic Preservation Tax Credit legislation. A multi-year effort came to fruition when legislation expanding the New York State Rehabilitation Tax Credits was approved and signed into law in July, 2009. The new law offers financial assistance to homeowners and commercial developers.

The League used one of the first applications of GIS mapping to demonstrate the potential impact of legislation during an advocacy process. Mapping and analysis demonstrated the degree to which residents and building owners would benefit from the legislation.

Individual Achievement:

The late Raymond V. Beecher. When the Thomas Cole house in Catskill was placed on the market in 1979, Mr. Beecher, of Coxsackie, saw past the immediate obstacles to restoring the house and property. He envisioned the site as a viable historic resource and led the Greene County Historical Society’s purchase and restoration of the property. The site was designated a National Historic Site in 1999 and opened to the public in 2001.

Mr. Beecher held a number of positions in the community including Greene County Historian, Town of Coxsackie Historian, leadership roles in the Greene County Historical Society for over 50 years and librarian at the Vedder Research Library. A prolific researcher and author, Mr. Beecher understood the importance of documenting the full record of Greene County’s built heritage. In order to raise awareness and encourage the preservation of this heritage, he initiated the establishment of the Historical Society’s Greene County Historical Register in 1990. The organization has just published the first volume of listed properties. Mr. Beecher died in October, 2008.

Project Achievement:

Knox Street Apartments, Albany for an outstanding rehabilitation project and commitment to community revitalization. WINNDevelopment Company of Rochester, NY and Boston worked in partnership with the City of Albany and the Capital City Housing Development Fund Corporation on an Urban Renewal Plan for Park South Neighborhood. The first implementation phase of the project was the rehabilitation of 18 rowhouses on Knox Street. Project consultants included The Architectural Team, Keith Construction, and Landmark Consulting.

Financing for the affordable housing project included Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits and low income housing tax credits. The rehabilitation has proven to be a catalyst for other neighborhood projects. These included the rehabilitation of one rowhouse whose owner qualified for the first use of the New York State Rehabilitation Tax Credits for homeowners.

221 McKibben Street, Brooklyn, for an outstanding rehabilitation project and commitment to community revitalization. Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (GMDC) rehabilitated the building for affordable work spaces for small manufacturing firms. Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits and New Market Tax credits were two key financing tools. Project partners included New York City-based preservation consultants Higgins and Quasebarth, OCV Architects, Westerman Construction and PCF State Restoration.

Residential development pressures have forced many Brooklyn businesses and small manufacturing firms to close or move. By preserving an industrial site for continued use, Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center is preserving the industrial heritage of Brooklyn.

Park Lane Apartments at Sea View, Former Nurses’ Residence of Sea View Hospital, Staten Island, for an outstanding adaptive use project and commitment to community revitalization. The Arker Companies and The Domain Companies developed the former dormitory into affordable senior housing units with the help of Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits. Other project partners were Building Conservation Associates and Hugo S. Subotovsky, Architects, LLC. The Sea View hospital campus was constructed from 1913 to 1938 for the treatment of tuberculosis, and it was the site of clinical trials that led to the cure for the disease.

The project was the first historic structure to be funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s affordable green design initiative program.

Packard Building, Buffalo, for an outstanding adaptive use project and commitment to community revitalization. Regan Development adapted the 1926 Packard Automobile Showroom and storage facility into affordable housing units and commercial space. Hamilton Houston, Lownie, Architects and Resetarits Construction were the consultants. The work was funded in part by Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits and affordable housing tax credits.

The partners took extra efforts to preserve the building’s distinct character. The architects searched nationwide for a firm to custom design replacement windows. In addition, the developers chose to retain and stabilize the building’s water tower, recognizing it as one of the landmark structure’s distinguishing features.

Public Sector Achievement:

The Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council and the Western Erie Canal Alliance for commitment to the field of historic preservation as a tool for community revitalization. The partnership of the Genesee/Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council and the Western Erie Canal Alliance is a model for a comprehensive, regional approach to economic development programs and historic preservation programs.

The Council and the Alliance focus many of their programs on smaller communities where municipal staff may not have the benefit of historic preservation training. Their regional approach is particularly appropriate for encouraging municipalities to collaborate on the community preservation and development programs instead of trying to address economic challenges in a vacuum.

The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), which is part of the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, helps communities identify, recognize, and preserve their historic resources, and incorporate them into local improvement and economic development activities. The SHPO administers several programs including the state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credit program, state historic preservation grants, the Certified Local Government program, and the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places, which are the official lists of properties significant in the history, architecture, and archeology of the state and nation.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Each Friday New York History compiles for our readers the week’s best stories and links from the web about the history of New York. You can find all our weekly web highlights here.

Exhibit Celebrates Vermont Jewish Women

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An exhibit made celebrating Vermont Jewish Women will be on display at the Vermont’s History Museum in Montpelier January 14 &#8211 March 31. Eighteen large panels depicting the life stories of 20 Jewish women from all walks of life, ages 12 to 101, who live and work in communities from Brattleboro to St. Johnsbury, Burlington to Andover, and Rutland to Woodstock will be on display. Each woman’s story is illustrated with a large photographic portrait, archival photos, an essay, and selected quotes and anecdotes in the women’s own words.

There will be an opening reception on Thursday, January 14th from 4:30 pm &#8211 6:30 pm with the exhibit creators &#8212- Ann Buffum and Sandra Gartner &#8212- as well as some of their subjects. The reception will also celebrate the Vermont Women’s History Project as it passes from the Vermont’s Commission on Women to its new home at the Vermont Historical Society. For more information, contact Tess Taylor at 802-479-8505.

US Fish Commission Annual Reports Available Online

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed online the annual reports of the United States Fish Commission, also known as the United States Fish and Fisheries Commission, from 1871-1940 and 1947-1979 in PDF format. The Commission was also part of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and these annual reports present comprehensive overview of the U.S. Fish Commission’s activities for each year. The reports are helpful for historians of commercial fishing areas in New York State including Long Island, the lower Hudson River, the St. Lawrence River, and Lake Erie. The entire collection can be found here.

The U. S. Fish Commission was established in 1871. By 1881 the Commission was known as the U.S. Fish and Fisheries Commission. The Bureau of Biological Survey was established in 1885. In 1903 the name was changed to Bureau of Fisheries. The Bureau of Fisheries was transferred on July 1, 1939, from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior. In 1940 the Bureau of Fisheries and the Bureau of Biological Survey were consolidated to form the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Beginning in July 1946, during the transition from war to peace, the Annual Report became a series of Quarterly Reports which presented a summary of bilogical investigations conducted by the Division of Fishery Biology and a general resume of progress of investigations during the entire year. 1957 was the last issue of Annaul Reports of the Fishery Biology, Department of Interior.

The Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956 created the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife within the Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Interior. The Report of the Bureau of Commerical Fisheries for the Calendar Year 1958&#8230- (published in 1962) was the first report for calender year 1957 and reviewed, in detail, the organization of the Bureau, the history of fishery administration and the operation of the Bureau’s predecessor organizations, U.S. Fish Commission and the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.

The Report of the National Marine Fisheries Service for Calendar Year 1970-1971 covers the period of transition of the Federal fisheries agency from the Deparment of Interior to the newly formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce.

Photo: A diagram of a gill net used for Salmon on the St. Lawrence River from the 1871 U. S. Fish Commission annual report.

Folk Art: New Joseph Hidley Painting Comes to Light?

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A newly discovered piece of folk art appears to be the early work of Rensselaer County artist Joseph H. Hidley. The work, a small graphite drawing signed &#8220Drawn by Joseph Hidley, 1841, age 11,&#8221 was purchased at a Massachusetts auction by Halsey Munson, a Decatur, Illinois a dealer in early American furniture, accessories and folk art. Although the authenticity of the piece has not yet been definitely established, it is an early townscape of the Hudson River village of Saugerties, similar in style and composition to Hidley’s other work.

Joseph Hidley’s short career is well represented in regional, state, and national museum collections. If authenticated, &#8220Saugerties&#8221 would be the earliest known work of Hidley who painted genre scenes, religious allegories, and land and townscapes while also working as a taxidermist and house, sign, and wagon painter.

The work is remarkably similar to a portion of William Wade and William Croome’s Panorama of the Hudson River from New York To Albany, which was published in 1846. The finding suggests that Hidley may have known William Croome, and copied his work before it was published.

The first step, according to Munson, is authenticating the work. &#8220In all of this, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time studying the published Hidley works and comparing them with the piece I have,&#8221 Munson told me via e-mail. &#8220Even allowing for my understandable desire for this piece to be right, I’ve found enough solid points of similarity to give me quite a bit of confidence that this could easily be by Joseph Hidley.&#8221

The image shows the first lighthouse at the mouth of the Esopus Creek at Saugerties, built in 1838 with funds appropriated from Congress, to guide ships away from nearby shallows and into the Esopus Creek when Saugerties was a major port. The light used five whale oil lamps with parabolic reflectors and was replaced in 1869, by a lighthouse that still stands. The foundation for the original lighthouse can still be seen adjacent to the existing lighthouse.

Photo provided by Halsey Munson.

Massachusetts Historical Society Research Fellowships

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The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) will offer about 30 research fellowships for the academic year 2010-2011, including at least two long-term research fellowships made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to approximately 20 short-term fellowships, the Society will help to provide at least 11 New England Regional Fellowship Consortium grants for projects that draw on the resources of several participating institutions, and at least two long-term MHS-NEH fellowships for study at the MHS. Each summer the Society offers 2-3 fellowships for K-12 teachers. During 4 weeks of on-site research at the MHS, teachers prepare a curriculum or comparable project based on primary documents to enhance instruction in American history, language arts, or science.

An independent research library and manuscript repository, the MHS’s holdings encompass millions of rare and unique documents and artifacts vital to the study of American history, many of them irreplaceable national treasures. A few examples include correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, such as her famous &#8220Remember the ladies&#8221- several imprints of the Declaration of Independence- and Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings. The MHS was founded in 1791, and in the absence of other local and state historical society’s played a national role into the latter part of the 19th century.

For more information about the Society’s research fellowships visit their web site at
www.masshist.org/fellowships or contact Conrad E. Wright at [email protected] or 617-646-0512.

Application deadlines:

MHS-NEH fellowships, January 15, 2010-

New England Regional Fellowships, February 1, 2010-

MHS Short-Term fellowships, March 1, 2010.

Dutch Legend: St. Nicholas and American Santa Claus

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Elisabeth Paling Funk will give a free lecture, entitled &#8220From the Old World to the New: St. Nicholas in Dutch Legend and Celebration and the Birth of the American Santa Claus,&#8221 at the Historic Elmendorph Inn, North Broadway in Red Hook on Wednesday, December 16, at 7:30 pm- refreshments will be served after the lecture. The event is sponsored by the Egbert Benson Historical Society of Red Hook.

Elisabeth Paling Funk PhD attended the University of Amsterdam, received her BA in English, cum laude, from Manhattanville College and an MA and PhD from Fordham University. She is an independent scholar, editor, and translator.Her articles on Dutch-American and early American Literature have been published in the U.S. and the Netherlands. She is preparing her dissertation, “Washington Irving and His Dutch-American Heritage . . . ” for publication as a book. Dr. Funk is a former trustee of the New Netherland Institute.

Photo: Sinterklaas in the Netherlands in 2007.

This Weeks New York History Web Highlights

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Each Friday New York History compiles for our readers the week’s best stories and links from the web about the history of New York. You can find all our weekly web highlights here.